Over the last few years, nature writing has formed a growing subset of non-fiction, as writers become more interested in engaging with their surroundings and exploring the impact the natural world has on us.
The latest book from award-winning Northern novelist Benjamin Myers is also part of that genre.
Under the Rock begins as the author and his wife leave London and move north, settling in the West Yorkshire town of Mytholmroyd, in a house in shadow of Scout Rock.
The book explores the impact the rock and the surrounding landscape has on Myers’ life and on his imagination. Although the narrative often ranges more widely, it always comes back to the looming spectre of Scout Rock.
There’s a thread of underlying darkness to the book, which readers of Myers’ other work will recognise. While his writing is often lyrical, he deals with difficult subjects and addresses again some of the themes he explored in his novels. The literary crime fiction Turning Blue and These Darkening Days were set in the Yorkshire Dales and Myers returns to the some of the ideas that preoccupied him there: the notion of valley fever affecting residents of these small, damp Yorkshire towns; and whether this has any correlation with some of the notorious former residents of the area – Harold Shipman, Peter Sutcliffe and Jimmy Saville.
While the book features many passages that explore the flora and fauna of the area, it also addresses the impact of man on the landscape. Stories of the industries that were once common in the area are threaded throughout the book, alongside the evidence of their destructive effect on the environment, with asbestos buried in the soil.
This is all the more shocking after dramatic weather strikes the valley, with the Boxing Day floods of 2015 told from the perspective of a community that was badly affected. Mytholmroyd was flooded and many of the real-life characters who pepper the book have their homes and possessions ruined. But there are some touching stories of community spirit and sacrifice among the floodwaters, as people band together to help their neighbours and groups from out of town organise support.
There are also moments of beauty and brutality, reflecting the nature of rural life. Two contrasting stories of injured animals stick in my mind: the tragedy of one animal that can’t be helped and another of a bat rescued and revived, before being released into the wild once again.
The natural world is always present in the book, even in the passages set indoors, in Myers’ home. The sense of cold and damp weather permeates his story, along with the burning of log fires and long walks in the wilderness. It’s easy to feel how immersed the writer is in the landscape that surrounds him, a landscape that was also once home to the poet Ted Hughes, who is often referred to throughout the book.
This is an interesting, beautifully written book with an otherworldly feel to it. Full of fragments of story from the lives of those living in the valley, it always hangs together as a broader narrative that has something to say about the natural world and man’s incursions into it.
Find out more about the book on Goodreads, Amazon and Waterstones.
N.B. I received a complimentary copy of Under the Rock for the purpose of review, but all opinions are my own.